Today I had a new client book an appointment for Internet connection issues. The symptoms were that she could not get her cable modem to connect to the Internet anymore. Her service provider suggested that she procure a new cable modem. After she did this, she still could not get online. She called her Internet Provider four different times and received different reasons for why this might be happening each time:
- “You have a virus…”
- “We don’t support Microsoft Outlook, you need to use our webmail…”
- “A storm or power outage would have nothing to do with this…”
- “There must be something on your computer blocking your internet access”
The calls with the internet provider did not resolve her issue. It turns out that she also had a defective network card. Should a power surge have come into her home through the cable line, this could very well be an explanation for why her cable modem and her network card failed.
With the new cable modem, the computer was acting very inconsistent, not picking up that a network cable was plugged into the computer from the cable modem. I was able to go online by connecting my laptop directly to the cable modem. This proved that the new modem and the cable were not defective.
Once we replaced the network card, all was well, the client smiled because she could get online again!